State of the Union. Survival Blankets and Falling Stars

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in 2015, as spontaneous, civil mobilizations against terrorism mounted, it became increasingly clear that the very spatial organization of Europe’s cultural values and political borders was at stake. Europeans rallied, in the name of their shared values, against a common, internal enemy. In light of these latest events, how does a postcolonial approach to Europe illuminate the politics of European identity, at a moment when the European Union is confronted with increasing border wars, the physical and social exclusion of migrants, the exploitation of undocumented migrant workers (many from the former overseas colonies of the ex-empires), strong anti-immigration and anti-Muslim feelings, and the consolidation of the racist extreme right? In this special issue, we approach today’s Europe from different national perspectives and we suggest that one of its unifying factors is indeed its shared postcoloniality. The underlining question of the volume is whether the postcolonial condition of different European countries determines the postcolonial nature of today’s Europe as a whole. In answering this question, we identify the salient traits that contribute to shaping national and European postcolonialities in a shared colonial history and memory; in the dynamics and clashes of contemporary transnational immigrations; in the ways in which processes of ‘otherization’ are enacted through old and new forms of racism; in the political and cultural practices by postcolonial subjects, which are shaping different national cultures and creating common trajectories across Europe.